Did that catch your eye? This post isn’t about the mechanics of intercourse or reproduction–this is the Internet, after all, and there are other sources to learn about that. This is also not about intercourse in role-playing games, because talking about that would inevitably lead to a discussion of F.A.T.A.L.–the game that serves as a…
Tag Archives: Planning
My most important role in my first D&D adventure was not as a spellcaster or a fighter or a ranger or a druid. Instead it was as that most honorable and hallowed calling: the party Map Monkey. There were four of us in that campaign, delving deeper and deeper into a deadly trap-laden dungeon. Each fork of a tunnel, each…
When Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition introduced the concept of ritual magic, I thought, “Cool!” When I actually played around with it, I thought, “Cool concept, but it needs some work.” What if… rituals were long, drawn-out feats of magic that could produce effects that rivaled magic items? rituals were so long, and required so…
I’ve been through more team-building classes and leadership development seminars than I really care to count. While I’ve taken some valuable things from them, I’ve never really stopped to think how the lessons I’ve taken away might be applied to my gaming life. This changed recently when I was describing an exercise from one of…
Years ago, I was finishing the back story for my new character, a first-level fighter and the only son of a wealthy family who trades his life of privilege for a military commission in a town on the edge of nowhere. While that brave soldier has since died, it was the first paragraph of his…
Rolling dice is fun, there is no doubt about that. At our gaming table, I’m “that guy” with a dice-bag made of the bottom half of a pair of cutoff jeans from when I was in 5th grade. It contains over 1 pound of dice, including a thirty- and hundred-sider. I remember with glee both…
Have you ever poured through books to find ideas for antagonists appropriate for your game, only to discover that nothing quite fits? For a lot of D&D GMs, turning to the Monster Manual for inspiration is a time-honored sport. Unfortunately, if you want something specific, you might be out of luck. For me, the problem…
When I was a burgeoning young GM, I had a very instructive game that served as a wakeup call for my understanding of how to run a game. My games were (and I hope still are) all about the stories. I enjoyed writing stories, and I had figured running a game couldn’t be that different. …